A taste of Mrs Pepperpot and Mrs Rochester

British politics isn't about Tony Blair any more; it's about Gordon Brown. As I scurried into the chamber yesterday to catch the chancellor's question time I picked up the leaflet published by the diminutive Hazel Blears - known as Mrs Pepperpot to her colleagues - in support of her campaign to become deputy leader of the Labour party.

The pamphlet is 12 pages long, but it crams in no fewer than 23 pictures of its subject. There is Hazel with John Reid, Hazel at the dispatch box, Hazel with smiling constituents, Hazel as a little girl, dressed as she was when she appeared in the film A Taste Of Honey, and Hazel with Gordon Brown. Both are clearly thrilled to be in each other's company.

But there is no picture of her with Tony Blair - indeed the prime minister (pro tem) is not even mentioned, even though it was presumably his personal popularity that helped get Mrs Pepperpot elected three times. Well, politics is about gratitude in the way that rugby league is about flower arranging - it's not why they're there.

In the chamber itself Gordon was busy turning the session into a one-hour party political broadcast for himself. As in all these commercials, ordinary members of the public are invited to give their personal testimony.

In this case the man in the street was played by one Dennis Skinner, a jobbing legislator. "Of all the G7 countries, Britain comes out top for jobs, stable growth and government debt," he declared, which I thought was pretty ironic coming from someone who, back in the 1970s, was an adherent of what the late Frank Johnson used to call the "tree-grown" theory of money.

"If this was a football team," Mr Skinner continued, "we would have done the treble nine years in a row!"

The cameras turned to Mr Brown, who smiled through the Tory jeers. "And it will be 10 years in a row!" he said, adding that in 1997 Britain had been seventh in the G7 for per capita income. Last year we were behind only the United States, which averaged $22,000 (£11,230) a head. Britain, at $19,000, was ahead of France, Germany and Japan (all on $17,000) and poor old Italy, scraping by on $15,000.

Now, Mr Brown knows very well that these figures are meaningless, and reflect only the absurdly high value of the pound. If you measured standards of living you would get a very different story. But this is politics, where truth is regarded like Tabasco sauce - chefs know that it should be used with great care, and never splashed around.

We had Gordon with the husky voice, speaking in low and emotional tones about the help he is giving the world's poorest - saving them from disease and educating their children.

But the Tories kept intruding. George Osborne quoted Charles Clarke, who had declared on Wednesday that "thanks to the chancellor, Labour is sleepwalking towards disaster". And he asked: "Does Mrs Rochester agree?"

This soubriquet, invented by Frank Field, has delighted the Tories and presumably infuriated Mr Brown, since no-body is going to vote for some helpless madwoman who sets herself on fire and burns the whole house down.